GM employees represented by the United Auto Workers Union have ratified the modifications to their National Labor Agreement. The amended agreement covers approximately 54,000 hourly employees located in 46 U.S. facilities.

“The leadership demonstrated by UAW president Ron Gettelfinger and UAW vice president Cal Rapson, and the hard work from the members of the GM and UAW negotiating teams, resulted in an innovative agreement that will enable GM to be fully competitive and has eliminated the gap with our competitors,” said Diana Tremblay, vice president of GM’s Labor Relations.

“We very much appreciate the support of our employees and retirees. Their shared sacrifices will enable GM to become a stronger, more viable company that will continue to deliver world-class cars and trucks.”

The modified agreement includes the cost and cash savings in the current version of the GM Viability Plan. GM claims this will enable the company to eliminate the wage and benefit gap with its competitors. It also includes changes to the agreements regarding the Voluntary Employee Beneficiary Association (VEBA) trust for retiree healthcare. The agreement also confirms GM’s plan to use an idled assembly and stamping facility for future production of a compact/small car in the United States to meet future fuel efficiency regulations.

Union protests appear to have stymied, for the moment anyway, GM's plans to import large numbers of cars from abroad.

Members of the United Auto Workers Union are expected to vote to accept more concessions as part of revised contract with General Motors Corporation, including a ban on strikes until 2015. GM needs the concessions to survive and the union has no choice but to give them, observed one local union leader. “Ron Gettelfinger and Cal Rapson did about as well as they could do,” he added.

UAW local union leadership representing UAW members at General Motors facilities across the country voted unanimously on Tuesday to recommend for ratification a new settlement agreement that modifies the 2007 UAW-GM National Agreement as well as changes to the Voluntary Employee Beneficiary Association trust for retiree health care.

As usual, the UAW is not releasing details of the agreement until after the vote is completed later this week. The agreement reduces the number of skilled trade classifications – long a point of contention inside GM plants – to just three for electrical, mechanical and tool and die trades. The sweeping consolidation of skilled trade classifications had long been sought, unsuccessfully, by GM’s management.

While not part of the latest contract, union protests appear to have stymied, for the moment anyway, GM’s plans to import large numbers of cars from abroad. The new GM plan outlined for UAW officials this week also increases the chance that of the four additional assembly plants GM was planning to close, at least three will now be retooled for new products previously slated for GM factories in other countries. The shift came on the heels of intense lobbying blitz by the union that put pressure on GM, the U.S. Treasury Department and the Obama Administration.

GM assembly plants in Orion Township and in Pontiac, Michigan have been on a speculative list of plants targeted for closing, along with GM plants in Wilmington, Delaware, Spring Hill, Tennessee and Shreveport, Louisiana. In fact, union officials in Tennessee last week had publicly pronounced the former Saturn plant Spring Hill plant as good as closed. (more…)